what do you install after a reformat/fresh windows install?

Recently, I've been considering reformatting my comps for increased speed, space, and organization. And so I thought it'd be fun to make a sharing thread for all the windows users out there (if you're a mac/unix user you can chime in, too, of course).

I always end up installing textpad. Basically an extended notepad with highlighting. Very useful if you do you some scripting.

P.S. And you don't instally diablo 2? That's blasphemy.

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oops, forgot to mention openoffice. for email, I just use browser email sites and facebook. never needed more than that.

as for the games; I install all those afterwards. These are just the programs that I install as a basic utility package.

I am wondering, however, if I should find a few more/better antivirus programs as well as a stricter firewall for my laptop. not to mention proxies; although I'm not quite sure how they work which is why I've stopped so far

I don't do this myself of course because I'm a clutch, but I ask someone to do it for me:
whatever antivirus
whatever office stuff available (can be open source actually)
outlook (which I use for certain bills)
Diablo II LoD with its updates
Malwarebytes

A ton of automatic updates apparently like to download themselves every week. I take it these accumulate whenever you reset your computer. I had to wait through 72 of them last time, but that was a while ago.

A ton of automatic updates apparently like to download themselves every week. I take it these accumulate whenever you reset your computer. I had to wait through 72 of them last time, but that was a while ago.

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the great thing about installing them after a reformat is that they won't install all at once. every time you restart your computer, you'll get another batch until you're all up to date...

I am wondering, however, if I should find a few more/better antivirus programs as well as a stricter firewall for my laptop. not to mention proxies; although I'm not quite sure how they work which is why I've stopped so far

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If you are bit carefull, that's more then enough. Al you need to do is try to get a stronger virus scanner to scan a few times per years, just in case.
Mcafee has an online scanner - so that's already one you can run on occasion.

My comp (WinXP) is getting pretty 'Winrot'ted, so I'm planning a bust out job sometime within the next couple of months myself. I used to get the Auto updates first, but every time I do, my comp takes 2x as long to boot and 8x longer to shutdown, it breaks my Firefox somewhat, etc., so I did some homework recently. I have over 120 updates on here currently, but looking through the security bulletins for them, I didn't even find 20 that seemed important, so I went and DL'd them separately and am gonna install those and keep auto updates off. After that:

What to install right after a fresh windows install? A fresh Linux distro. It's like using light beer to rinse your mug before you put something tasty in it. It's not necessary, but what else will you do with the light beer?

But if we're talking about windows only :whistling:, then there are a few things I used to use:

- PDF Creator - lets you print to pdf from any program
- OpenOffice
- Gimp
- Inkscape
- Putty - ssh/sftp
- VirtualBox - Sun MicroSystems' free virtual machine, so I can run linux inside Windows if I need to
- Sage - a do-it-all computer mathematics system (can be run from the command line or displayed through a web browser, also incorporates pari), runs via VirtualBox
- GP/Pari - command line almost-do-it-all calculator
- FireFox
- Google Chrome

Snicker stole my thunder, but the answer is of course Ubuntu. What, pay for all that (or download spyware-laden) garbage, when I can have a faster, cleaner system that consistently runs feckin' rings around Winblows? The only reason I or my family ever use that carp is when there's a game that simply can't run properly under Wine.

When a 7-year-old can mix & burn his own CD's in Linux, you have to wonder why M$FT has any market share at all.

Hmmm. It varies a bit, since I usually install some games along with the usual programs, drivers and updates, but which games gets installed depends on what I feel like playing at the time. But the most important things to get installed:

Oh, awesome, it has everything on it that I'd probably ever use, but... what's with these fonts?
Okay, time to Google. Okay, fixed the system fonts, but... The Firefox fonts are still screwed up?
After a few hours I finally changed enough random files that I got Firefox to show me some pretty fonts, but I had exactly no knowledge of how I really fixed them since I'm not a Linux system wizard, I'm just a regular user with some very minor hacking abilities.

MS might be a gigantic heap of idiocy, but when I uncheck "clear type fonts" it knows that I don't want any of that fuzzy font nonsense.

This is why Ubuntu and Linux in general are flailing around, still holding their tiny piece of the general OS market share.

Then I restore my bookmarks and I install flash player. I do this so regularly that I keep all the stuff in one place so I can install each one right off the bat Whatever I forgot, I just add to my reinstall apps list =]